Except that that doesn't seem to be so. When a user uses new.net's plug-in, he or she is accessing third and fourth level domains. But most of the eyeballs new.net is claiming don't come from plug-in downloads; they come from the ISP contracts. And when new.net makes a deal with an ISP, the deal is that the ISP's nameservers will query new.net's augmented root zone. There are a lot of grounds on which to be unhappy with new.net, and the odds are still against their achieving any market success. But, FWIW, they really are running an alternate root.